Fatalis: A Novel

By Jeff Rovin

The two luminescent eyes watched the long, deserted roadway from low on the gusty promontory. Moist and dark, like large oily pearls, the eyes shifted and widened almost imperceptibly at every movement a hundred feet below. They roamed among the dim lights and deep shadows, the tall waves of the sea beyond, the dark beach, the large sea animals that broke the surface in the distance, the night birds that soared and hovered above the rocks, the flat clouds, the misty raindrops, the signposts rattling in the wind.

Most of these things were familiar; a few were not. But new or old, it was a world of constant movement, a world where any motion could be enemy or prey. Which was why the eyes missed nothing. Nor did the ears, which were shaped like gold tulip petals...

It froze as the scent came suddenly, from the north...The black eyes were met by other black eyes and they all began to move...Quickly and silently they slid through the brush and stones...commanding the foothills simply by moving through them. The smell of the prey was different, the speed was greater than they had seen, but the size was familiar.

They knew just what to do.

--From Fatalis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jun 12, 2000
• ISBN: 9780312271558

Jeff Rovin

Jeff Rovin is the author of more than one-hundred books, fiction and nonfiction, both under his own name, under various pseudonyms, or as a ghostwriter, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. He has written over a dozen Op-Center novels for the late Tom Clancy. Rovin has also written for television and has had numerous celebrity interviews published in magazines under his byline. He is a member of the Author’s Guild, the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Horror Writers of America, among others.

Book preview

1

The bobcat moved slowly through the cool, shallow mountain stream. His stocky torso swayed easily between four heavily muscled limbs, his head slung low between powerful shoulders. The cat’s large paws didn’t so much rise as slide forward as he followed the westward flow of the stream.

The cat liked moving through water. Unlike the boulders and trees on either bank, water did not retain traces of the cat, odors that another predator could track to his den. Far more important than his own safety were the lives of the cats he had left behind.

When the stream finally disappeared beneath the large rocks and mossy, fallen trees of a wide ravine, the cat vaulted to the largest of the boulders. He took a moment to sniff the air. Then, with a great, sure-footed leap, he set out for the hills and valleys below.

The muddy earth was cool beneath the cat’s thick footpads. A stiff wind blew up along the weatherworn crags and tangled scrub of the steep mountaintop. The wind ruffled the cat’s reddish-brown coat and carried smells from the distant foothills. His flesh-colored nose wrinkled from left to right as it searched for the familiar scent of a cottontail or wild turkey. Since leaving its small cave the cat had smelled nothing but damp earth, vegetation, and the distant sea.

The cat’s short, black-tipped tail swayed stiffly behind it, a sign to other cats that he was hunting. Ordinarily, a rigid tail would have been sufficient to drive rival predators from the territory, both bobcats and coyotes. But tonight was different. Tonight there was hunger in the mountains. If it met another predator it might have to fight for the mountain pass.

The cat’s large, rigid ears resembled tawny rose petals. Topped with short black tufts, the ears moved independently of one another as the cat listened for blats from a litter, the crack of a twig, a stone clattering down the slope—anything that might indicate the presence of prey.

But there was no sound. Since the coming of the rains, many of the smaller animals had been washed from their burrows and nests. Even the field mice were gone. Two or three would have been enough to calm his raging belly and a few more would have fed his mate and her litter.

The flooding had forced the cat to venture farther down the mountain each night, closer to bright lights and to strident, unfamiliar sounds. But at least the grass was higher here and there were deep ditches and gullies, both caused by heavy runoff from the peaks. Ground fog was also thicker because of the rains. That made it easier for the cat to hide.

As he neared a long, level patch of stone, the cat suddenly smelled something musky. He stopped and crouched down on his lean, powerful legs. His white underbelly nearly touched the ground as he settled into a springing stance. The smell rose and fell, moved from side to side, grew weaker and stronger. But it always came from the same place on the mountainside. Pinpointing the scent, the cat turned his ears in the direction of the spoor. His luminous golden eyes peered through the mist. Silently he crept forward.

And then he saw it. His prey was a shaggy creature moving at a slow, uncaring pace. The animal was slightly smaller than himself though not close enough to attack with a leap. Not yet. It would have to be stalked.

The cat ignored the loud sound coming from somewhere beyond the prey. Still crouched low, the hunter moved forward swiftly and confidently.

Here, Ruthie!

Heather Jackson stood in the open doorway of the small foyer shaking a half-empty box of dog biscuits. Dressed in jeans and a University of California, Santa Barbara, sweatshirt, she shivered as the uncommonly cold fall night wind stirred her long, black hair and brushed her cheek.

Ruthie, Please! Don’t make me have to come and get you!

The tall, twenty-seven-year-old actress and her six-year-old springer spaniel shared a large, storybook log cabin three thousand feet up in the rugged Santa Ynez Mountains north of Santa Barbara. Except for the security bars on the windows, rooftop satellite dish, electric wires strung to a pole high up the hill, and an attached garage—some mornings it was just too cold to go outside, and lately it had rained every damn day—except for all that, the cabin was straight from a fairy tale. There was a glorious vegetable garden, hardwood floors nearly half-a-century old, a stone fireplace in every room, and an epic view of cliffs, valleys, and ocean that stretched clear out to the Channel Islands. Even on dreary La Niña—bad nights like this, the thick rolling clouds that covered the mountaintops were spectacular.

Heather stopped shaking the box and listened. The only sounds were the rustling of the two-foot-high blackberry hedges that lined the short stone walkway and the muted ruffs and snorts of the spaniel. The little barks were coming from somewhere beyond the driveway, past the white glow of a spotlight mounted above the front door.

Ruthie never went far but Heather didn’t want to go out looking for the dog. She was exhausted. And since La Nina had spent the last week slamming the Southern California coast, dog-fetching meant getting a flashlight to pick through the heavy fog, pulling on boots to slog through the mud, and wearing a heavy coat and gloves to deal with the wind-whipped cold.

Not that Heather blamed Ruthie for blowing her off. They’d moved here three months before, from a tiny Tarzana rental. A hit series and a mortgage were wonderful new experiences for the young woman. And for Ruthie, instead of the same old same old—running back and forth on a fenced-in sixth-of-an-acre, barking at dogs she never got to see, napping, and napping some more—the dog now spent the day chasing scavengers from the compost heap and exploring her little corner of several thousand wild acres.

"Ruthie, please! Heather implored. I can’t let you stay outside, it’s too cold!"

Something crunched at the end of the long gravel driveway, just beyond the edge of the spotlight. Heather’s spirits perked.

Come on, Ruthie! Come on, girl!

The crunching stopped.

Heather gave the box of biscuits another shake. Come on, La Roo, be nice to Mommy. She’s got an early call tomorrow.

A moment later the crunching started again. Heather watched for the familiar hangdog eyes, the droopy smile, and the white-and-brown coat which often came home tangled with burrs.

After a few seconds Ruthie strutted into the spotlight as if she were the star. Her tail wagged in big, sweeping strokes and her license jangled like a diamond from her flea-and-tick collar.

There’s my girl! Heather said sweetly.

Ruthie didn’t hurry and Heather didn’t take that personally. The days of being greeted with puppylike leaps and yips were long gone. They’d been replaced with a dignified saunter and a perfunctory kiss-before-biscuiting.

But that was okay. Ruthie still cuddled close to her at night and was more honestly affectionate than any man Heather had ever known.

Ruthie was on the walkway, just a few feet from the door, when the tan streak shot over the hedges. The bobcat landed less than a yard behind her, turned ninety degrees without stopping, and charged the dog.

Heather screamed when she saw the animal. As Ruthie turned to see what was behind her, Heather threw the box of biscuits at the predator. The carton struck his head and caused him to break his stride. Taking a long step out, Heather grabbed the spaniel by the tail and pulled her back. Ruthie barked but Heather got the dog inside and threw her shoulder against the door.

The bobcat hit the door before the latch caught. The impact bumped Heather back and opened the door a crack. The bobcat pushed its muzzle and right forefoot through the opening before Heather could close it. Releasing the dog, she threw both hands and her full weight against the door. Growling and turning her head this way and that, the spaniel tried to bite the bobcat.

No, Ruthie! Heather cried.

The door jumped and shuddered as the cat clawed at the spaniel. Heather kicked awkwardly at Ruthie, who continued to snap at the attacker.

Ruthie, go away! Now!

Suddenly, the bobcat’s leg and muzzle pulled back so quickly they seemed to vanish. The door slammed shut and Heather stumbled against it. The latch clicked. Acting quickly, the young woman threw the deadbolt, pushed herself off the door, and stood back. She was panting, her heart slapping against her ribs.

We did it, she muttered breathlessly.

Ruthie continued to bark.

It’s okay, Roo, Heather said, only half believing it.

Ruthie stopped barking and Heather listened. The silence seemed thicker than before, perhaps because of all the snarling and hissing that had just gone on. Heather didn’t know and she didn’t care. She stepped over to the window on the side of the foyer, looked out, saw nothing.

As soon as Heather calmed down a little she’d call the Santa Barbara sheriff’s department, ask someone to come up and have a look around. Heather had never even seen a bobcat in the hills and was afraid that this one might be rabid. She had visions of being told that she’d have to ring her mountain retreat with leghold traps, poisoned meat, and barbed wire.

End of fairy tale. Next stop: Brentwood.

Heather walked over to where Ruthie was standing, sniffing the air. The dog’s tail had drooped and she was shaking. The young woman picked Ruthie up and kissed her nose.

You can stop now, Heather said. You won. The cat’s gone. Let’s just call the sheriff and go to bed.

Cradling the dog under her chin, Heather shut the outside light and headed up the dark staircase to the bedroom. She put the dog on the bed while she went to the phone on the nightstand.

Ruthie hopped off the covers and slid beneath the bed.

She was still trembling.

It was as though the fast-moving clouds had snagged and torn on the sharp mountaintops. Thick beads of rain fell suddenly, pelting the sandstone crags and beating down the wildflowers and ferns that covered the higher slopes. Rushing water cut deeper into the gullies, washing dirt from the underlying shale and spilling it onto the ridges below.

The rain also pounded the homes scattered through the high foothills. It drummed on rooftops, windows, and decks. It flooded storm drains and garages and uprooted plants.

At one house the rain slashed through the low hedges and dissolved a small, discarded cardboard box that lay beside them. The downpour ate away dog biscuits that were inside the box and washed them toward the house. There, the crumbs mixed with ruddy streams that were swirling off the stone walk, running down the front door, and dripping from the windowsill.

Streams of blood, all that remained of a bobcat on its final hunt.

2

Jim Grand was having trouble sleeping. Again.

Wearing white boxer shorts and lying on a twin bed tucked in a corner of the bedroom, Grand stared up with his arm thrown behind his head. Rain pelted the roof and a streetlight threw gray, watery shadows on the ceiling.

Grand’s black Labrador retriever, Fluffy—Rebecca’s joke name for the sleek-haired monster—was flopped across the foot of the bed. The dog’s legs were pointed toward Grand, his head half off the far corner of the bed. The Chumash had always said that animals were better suited to this world than we were. Fluffy was certainly evidence of that. He was breathing easily, occasionally woofing softly from somewhere in dog dreamland.

As Grand watched patterns on the ceiling melt one into the other, he couldn’t help but think of happier shadows. The ones he lost when Rebecca died nine months before. Those were the reason he was still awake. He thought of Rebecca at their small home, where they hardly ever were because they were always doing things and going places. On her boat, in their plane, across a restaurant table at the god-awful Chris’s Crinkles—she loved the fries, the more burnt the better—at the movies, or beside him in the car on a long weekend, a map in her lap and no destination in mind. Whatever they were doing she was as curious and outgoing and fun as the day he met her.

This isn’t good, he told himself. Grand’s eyes grew damp. He had to stop this and get to sleep.

The ancient Thules of Alaska believed that spirits existed by feeding on belief and that turning away made them go away. Grand forced himself to think about something else. Like the newly uncovered cave he was going to explore above Arrowhead Springs. Or a student he hadn’t thought of in years.

Anything.

But it was night, and because it was dark and quiet his mind went where it wanted to go. Whichever way Grand tried to go his thoughts always cycled back to Rebecca. How the hell could he not? The first time Grand spoke to her, that cold day on the beach near Stearns Wharf—when he was gathering shells to make prehistoric utensils and she was bagging kelp for research—he knew they’d be together forever. She was just so happy, bright, and self-effacing.

Except when someone screwed with her fish, he thought with a smile.

Like the evening she confronted the oceanographer whose deep-sea research with bright lights was blinding shrimp. She threatened to burn his house down if she found one more shrimp with chalky-white eyes and degraded photopigments. Grand was the one with the massive rock-climbing biceps and chest but Rebecca was the scary one when enraged.

And then the smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and the emptiness and tears returned.

Grand turned to his left and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was nearly one-thirty. He had spent over two hours jumping from one thought to the next. This was going nowhere.

Throwing off the top sheet, the thirty-five-year-old paleoanthropologist sat on the edge of the bed and stared at nothing. Fluffy lifted his large head and looked back.

It’s okay, Grand said softly.

Fluffy continued to look at him.

Go back to sleep.

At the word sleep, Fluffy put his head down. He knew the drill.

Grand had hoped that things would start changing when he brought this house on Kent Place nearly six months before. A quiet, dead-end street in Goleta, west of Santa Barbara. A different environment. That should have created new dynamics, helped keep Rebecca in his heart and memory.

He was wrong. Grand desperately missed the house on Shoreline Drive, a sunny Mediterranean his wife had picked out for them and decorated. He’d never had trouble sleeping with her beside him. Though he and Rebecca had a king-size bed, they always ended up in a less-than-twin-size space somewhere around the middle. She loved being rocked by him and lullabied by the nearby sound of the surf. If anything, moving here had left him feeling another degree removed from her and he missed her even more strongly. He could still feel her nakedness and warmth in his empty arms—

Stop it.

He put his strong, calloused hands on his scarred knees. He needed to be rested and clearheaded when he went back into the cave, and sitting here thinking wasn’t going to help. Maybe if he weren’t in bed where Rebecca’s absence was so keenly felt. Maybe then he could sleep.

You weren’t there for her—

Grand pushed himself up and walked into the short corridor with its framed degrees and photographs on the wall, all of them crooked and dusty. The hall ended in a small living room where there were three walls of bookcases, their shelves overstuffed with books, research videos, and artifacts from thirteen years of digs. The front door and windows were behind two of the bookcases. Against the fourth wall was a gunmetal desk he’d taken from the university, a stationary bicycle, a brass floor lamp, a nineteen-inch television, and a secondhand sofa. Everything but the bicycle and lamp was stacked with folders and cardboard boxes. Between the desk and the TV was the door to the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen was the bathroom and his den workshop.

Grand turned on the lamp. He wasn’t hungry and he didn’t feel like going into the workshop or drawing a bath and reading. That left the desk, so he walked over and sat down. But he also didn’t feel like editing his paper on the Ice Age caves he’d explored three months before in Greenland or logging on and debating human origins with some armchair academic. So he just stared at his dour reflection in the dark computer screen.

Grand’s deepset blue eyes were dark and his wavy black hair could use a trim. He also hadn’t shaved in two days. He used to shave every day. The chin was still strong but the long jawline had no meat on it. His face looked thin. Or maybe it only seemed thin because the rest of him was so healthy-looking from all the hiking, climbing, and spelunking he did. It was strange. Hammer the body and it became stronger. Hammer the soul and it grew numb.

Grand shook his head as his eyes drifted from the monitor to the small framed photo on the left, beside the phone.

The picture was of Grand and Rebecca on her sailboat Kipper Skipper. He smiled broadly. That had been a perfect day. Great wind but smooth seas, a lot of laughs, and a total surprise when he went into the cooler and came back with tuna sandwiches, iced tea, and a diamond engagement ring. It was one of two occasions he’d seen his stoic little New England Yankee cry with happiness. The second time was when he got a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to explore and map the more remote Chumash caves in the high Santa Ynez Mountains. Even though Rebecca’s own funding at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had been gutted and her own job was in jeopardy, she couldn’t stop hugging him when he got the news. She knew how desperately he wanted to get out of the classroom more and into the field.

Grand felt tears behind his eyes and looked away from the photograph. It was strange. Part of him didn’t want to lose the pain, as though by losing it he would also lose the love he still felt for Rebecca. It was a passion he continued to feel, the only one he could express. But he also knew that he needed to let it go. Tears were draining enough during the day. At night they kept him awake, filled his dreams, and left him unrested in the morning.

Grand slid the computer keyboard to the right, then folded his arms on the desk beside the photograph. He lay his head down, shut his eyes, and listened to the rain.

I’m sorry that you have to see me like this, he said softly, thinking of the photograph. If Rebecca were spirit, he wondered what she thought about his suffering. Probably sadness. And what about the little things she’d never have seen when she was alive? Everything from buying products from companies she was boycotting to letting fingernail clippings fly across the room and stay there.

That last, at least, brought him a little smile. If spirits could go ecch, she did that for certain.

The downpour caused him to think about the cave and the conditions he’d find in the morning. The mossy rocks on the cliff would be slippery, there might be flash floods from captured rainwater, and rock slides both inside and out were a real possibility. But Grand wasn’t worried about that. The danger had always been part of the appeal.

Besides, what was the worst that could happen? He’d be trapped down there and preserved and discovered by some other anthropologist in a few thousand years.

Big deal, he thought. He’d end his own suffering and he’d make headlines as the Brooding Mountain Man. They’d try to figure out his life and habits from the clothes he wore and the tools he carried. They’d open his stomach and pick between his teeth and try to learn something about his diet. They’d study the fillings in those teeth and the scars on his arms and legs and marvel on how primitive medicine was. But when they found the faded photo slipped into his shirt pocket they’d feel a kinship that spanned every age of human endeavor. They’d know that his ancient man had the capacity to love, and that he’d loved a woman named Rebecca Schuman-Grand.

Grand’s tired mind was cycling again but he kept his eyes shut. And as he returned to Rebecca and thought of the picture standing beside him, he no longer felt so terribly alone. The rain turned to sea spray, the desk became a deck, and in a few minutes he was finally able to sleep … .

3

On most days, senior structural engineer Stan Greene and his junior partner William Roche of the California Department of Transportation, Office of Structure Maintenance and Investigations, District 7, would have enjoyed this morning’s TroDA—Tertiary Road Degradation Assessment duty. Though the partners had only a rudimentary knowledge of geology, they were already on the payroll. Sending them up for preliminary analysis was less expensive than bringing in a three-hundred-dollar-an-hour UCSB geologist for an opinion. Ordinarily, walking around with a hand in his pocket, sipping coffee and poking dirt roads with toe, heel, or pick, was more fun than being suspended from a windy bridge and taking vertical angle measurements with a Laser Theodolite.

Ordinarily.

Mucking around in thirty-degree temperature at five in the morning on the top of a mountain with a cool drizzle still falling—that wasn’t the forty-two-year-old Greene’s idea of a fun start to the day. But hundreds of people lived high in the Santa Ynez Mountains. One of them had called the sheriff about a prowling bobcat. After investigating, the deputy had spotted a sinkhole. Greene and Roche were on call; if the only road in and out of the mountains was collapsing, they had to find out where and why and figure out how to fix it.

After getting the call from the assistant deputy district chief, Greene hurriedly dressed and went to pick up the thirty-four-year-old Roche at his foothills condominium. Greene had forgotten to bring his doxepin, the antidepressant he’d been taking since hitting forty, but he’d been feeling better the last few weeks and hoped he’d be okay. The men had driven along rain-slippery roads from Santa Barbara. They headed up Camino Cielo, the eastern approach to Painted Cave Road, following the snaking dirt road into the mountains. Painted Cave Road itself was little more than a one-vehicle path and Greene took it slowly. During storms, in the dark, branches fell from the overhanging trees and rocks dropped from the ledges, making it especially treacherous.

The men parked their Caltrans van beside the tree-lined ravine. Below them, to the north, the Ygnacio Creek went underground. Up ahead was where the sheriff’s deputy had spotted the small sinkhole. They pulled on their orange ponchos, took flashlights from holders on the door, and got out. Then they went to the side of the van and retrieved their large field backpacks. The packs weighed twenty pounds each and contained a small collapsible pick/shovel combination, a digital camera, a hammer, various size pitons, flares, waterproof portable radios, a ten-foot rope ladder, and a first-aid kit.

The men turned on their flashlights and started up the steep, dark hill. To their right was the tree-lined ravine, which disappeared into the darkness. To their left was a narrow ditch at the foot of sandstone bedrock that rose almost vertically. Greene walked a few steps in front of Roche. The only sounds were the rippling creek below, the rain tapping on leaves, and their boots crunching on the wet dirt. The only living things they saw were three-to-five-inch lemony-gray banana slugs inching along the rocks and mulchy sides of the roadway.

I was just telling the kids that when I was their age I used to play soldier up here, Roche said. Y’know, we took away a lot of the enchantment up here with all the paving we’ve been doing. When we were kids it was all manly dirt. You felt like a pioneer or a soldier behind enemy lines.

"You did, Bill. I was busy bringing girls up here to make out."

When you were eight?

When I was eight.

"Man. No wonder you’re burned out now. Gave the Chumash spirits all your life essence. Me? I used to borrow my older brother’s dog tags, grab my Daisy rifle and a backpack full of provisions like jerky and Twinkies, and I’d be on a mission in Europe. I had this Clint Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare, thing going. Storm the mountain fortress. The scuzzier the weather, the happier—"

Shit! Greene stopped and shined his flashlight ahead.

Roche stopped abruptly beside him and echoed the remark. Both engineers stood staring for a long moment.

About fifteen feet in front of them the left side of the road seemed to sag in. The sides of the depression were smooth and mushy. They reminded Greene of paper towels that had been run under a faucet in a TV commercial. Torn and ragged in the center and sagging around the edges. Mist swirled from the sides as damp, cool air mixed with the warming air.

That’s a big goddamned sinkhole, Roche said. Either that or a small volcano. You sure the deputy said it was a one-footer?

Yeah, Greene replied.

Greene picked up a long tree branch that was lying in the shallow ditch between the mountain and the road. He didn’t take a step without first jabbing the fat end of the branch straight down into the road. Earth around a sinkhole could be like quicksand, especially if the underlying rock had collapsed. That was a definite possibility in this area. On the drive up Roche had checked California Institute of Technology geological charts using the van computer. This section of the mountains sat on a confluence of fault zones: the Mesa-Rincon Creek, Santa Ynez, Mission Ridge, Arroyo Parida, and Santa Ana. The region could be laced with fissures large and small and it wouldn’t surprise Greene if the weeks of rain had tapped into one. The potential volatility of the region was one reason the United States Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation were spending millions of dollars to study it, both on the ground and by satellite. What worried Greene was how much of the road might be in danger of falling in.

The ground approaching the sinkhole was stable and it took the men less than a minute to reach the rim. The opening was about six feet across, half of it on the road and half of it in the ditch. Dirt from the road was washing in with the rain and the smell that hung above the pit was awful, like a freshly opened cesspool. Exposed roots and the edges of slablike rocks jutted from the mountain and ravine sides. The stratum beneath had obviously collapsed and the dirt had been washed into the hole. There were about four feet of road to the right where the treadmarks of the black-and-white patrol car were still visible.

The treads are right at the edge but the driver didn’t have to swerve to avoid it, Greene pointed out.

The sinkhole’s getting bigger fast, Roche said.

Greene nodded.

I’d better set out flares, Roche said. He turned and walked up the road, to the west. There would be more traffic coming down the mountain than going up at this time of day.

Cautiously, Greene moved closer to the sinkhole. As he neared the edge the ground felt like foam rubber; it was that saturated. The engineer could hear rocks coming loose underneath, possibly pieces from other cracked sections of bedrock. With nowhere to go, rainwater would have been pushed into existing fractures of the natural roadbed, stressing and expanding them. Daily traffic destroyed the remaining structural integrity. What Greene needed to know was how much of the road was in danger of collapsing. The hole beneath the bedrock might have been an isolated one caused by centuries of runoff from the mountain to the ravine.

Greene carefully knelt and leaned over the rim. The rocks of the roadbed had cracked and fallen about three feet. They were covered with dirt that was still washing in from all four sides. Greene ran his light across the edges of fallen rock. Each slab was about four inches thick.

As he knelt there more tiny pieces became dislodged and fell. Greene lay on his belly to distribute his weight over a wider area. He poked his head and the flashlight into the sinkhole and looked at the sides. The hole continued to the east and west, directly under the road.

That’s just great, he said.

Roche’s workboots slapped on the mud behind him. What’s wrong?

Don’t come over, Greene said. He looked back. Light from the flares had turned the world around them a dull, flickering red. We’ve got a fissure.

A big one?

I can’t tell, Greene said. Set out the rest of the flares, then call Chelmow and let her know what we’ve found. Tell her that until we know how far the fissure follows the road, this section should be closed. I also suggest that she get a geologist up here.

Right, Roche said. He circled the sinkhole wide, walking along the ravine among the ferns and ivy. Then he jogged back to the van.

Greene lay down again and stuck his head back in the opening. He turned to the side to try and see deeper along the fissure. As he ran his flashlight along the mountainside wall, he heard a faint echoing cry from the fissure.

What the hell?

Roche stopped and looked back. Did you say something?

Greene shushed him with his hand and listened. After a few seconds he heard the cry again, louder than before.

Christ, Greene muttered. He sat up on his knees and quickly slipped off his backpack.

What’s wrong? Roche shouted.

I hear crying down there.

You hear what?

Crying!

Like a baby?

No, Greene said. Like someone might be hurt.

The engineer hoped that an early-morning jogger or a dog-walker or teenagers who’d camped out in a cave hadn’t taken a tumble into the sinkhole. He hadn’t seen any footprints around it, but then they wouldn’t have been as deep as the tire treads. The rain might have erased them.

Greene slid his legs around so that he was sitting on the soft edge of the sinkhole.

Whoa there! What are you doing? Roche asked.

Going down, Greene said.

Stan, no.

It’s okay, Greene told him.

Stan—

Listen to me, Greene said. I don’t think any more of the road is about to fall in—

But you don’t know that.

It’ll be okay.

Famous second-to-last words, Roche said. "They’re the ones that come right before, ‘Oh, fuck!’ Anyway, whatever’s down there may not be a ‘someone.’ It could be a dog or that bobcat the deputy never